owner-dependency

---
name: owner-dependency
description: Turns the owner's own honest account of every task, relationship, piece of knowledge or authority that currently depends on them personally, their Designated Premises Supervisor and Food Business Operator status, their office holder and shareholding position, whether key person insurance is already in place, and whether a lasting power of attorney exists, into a dated dependency register ranked by how quickly each item could be broken out against what genuinely cannot be delegated before a sale, a Designated Premises Supervisor and Food Business Operator single point of failure file, a key person insurance status file, and a gap list. Use when you are one to three years from selling, retiring or handing the business to family and nothing about what only you can do has ever been written down.
---

# A written register of everything that only works because you are there, ranked by how fast each one can be handed to someone else

You give this your own honest list of tasks, relationships and knowledge that currently run through you personally, whether you are the sole Designated Premises Supervisor and the named Food Business Operator, your position as a company officer or shareholder, whether key person insurance already exists, and whether a lasting power of attorney is in place. You get back a dated register: every dependency named, ranked by how it could actually be broken out, a Designated Premises Supervisor and Food Business Operator file naming the single points of failure the law itself creates, a key person insurance status file, and a gap list. It never scores owner dependency as a percentage and it never states that reducing it adds a specific amount or percentage to a sale price, because no published figure exists for a single independent UK hospitality business, and the one public tool found claiming to calculate that figure turned out to be a US sales aid built on American small business data.

## What it does

1. **Write down what "only you" actually means, before naming a single task.** Most owners' first list is really a list of things they currently do, not things only they can do. Sort every candidate into two piles: tasks you happen to do because nobody else has been asked, and tasks that genuinely stop or fail if you are unavailable for a week. The register is built from the second pile. A task that a competent second person could pick up from a written note by Friday is not a dependency, it is an undone job, and the two need different fixes. Do this sorting honestly and in your own words before the register has a single row, because a register that starts too wide buries the two or three dependencies that actually matter.

2. **Build the register one dependency at a time, with your own account of why it depends on you.** For each item write what it is, why it currently needs you specifically, what a workable handover would look like, who you would name if you had to name someone today, and a target date for getting it written down or handed over. Include tasks (the Thursday supplier order, the till reconciliation), relationships (the two corporate customers who book because they know you, the landlord's agent who only deals with you), knowledge (the recipe that was never written down, the reason the walk in fridge alarm sometimes trips), and authority (who can actually sign a cheque, approve a refund, or agree a rota swap when you are not there). Every row is your own statement, not a guess made on your behalf.

3. **Name the Designated Premises Supervisor fact specifically, because the law makes it a single point of failure and not just a job title.** Licensing Act 2003 section 15 defines the term precisely: "references to the 'designated premises supervisor', in relation to a premises licence, are to the individual for the time being specified in that licence as the premises supervisor", and confirms "nothing in this Act prevents an individual who holds a premises licence from also being specified in the licence as the premises supervisor", which is why so many owners hold both roles themselves. Section 19 then turns that into a hard stop: every premises licence authorising the supply of alcohol must include the condition that "no supply of alcohol may be made under the premises licence at a time when there is no designated premises supervisor in respect of the premises licence, or at a time when the designated premises supervisor does not hold a personal licence or his personal licence is suspended", and separately that "every supply of alcohol under the premises licence must be made or authorised by a person who holds a personal licence." If you are the sole named DPS and the sole personal licence holder on site, record that as its own line, not folded into the general task list, because it is a legal condition on the licence itself, not a preference about who runs the bar.

4. **Name the Food Business Operator fact the same way, because it is a personal legal responsibility, not a rota position.** Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 Article 3(3), as it applies in the UK, defines the food business operator as "the natural or legal persons responsible for ensuring that the requirements of food law are met within the food business under their control." Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 Article 5(1) then places the duty to "put in place, implement and maintain a permanent procedure or procedures based on the HACCP principles" directly on that operator. The two read together as one fact worth sitting with: handing the fridge checks, the temperature log and the allergen matrix to a kitchen manager delegates the tasks, but it does not move the legal responsibility for the food safety procedure off the person the local authority has on file as the operator. Record who is currently registered as the FBO, whether that registration reflects who actually runs food safety day to day, and whether that mismatch has ever been raised with the local authority.

5. **Check the Business Asset Disposal Relief timing before you resign anything, because reducing your own involvement too early can cost the relief you were trying to protect.** HMRC's helpsheet HS275 sets two conditions for a personal company: "you hold at least 5% of the ordinary share capital and that holding gives you at least 5% of the voting rights in the company", and "you must be either an officer or employee of that company (or an officer or employee of one or more members of the trading group)." Both must be met "throughout a period of 2 years", ending on the date of disposal. An owner who resigns as director, or gives away shares to bring a successor in, more than a token amount before the sale can unintentionally break that continuous two year test for the very shares they are trying to sell. This is not a reason to avoid reducing dependency. It is a reason to write down the date of any change to your own office holder or shareholding status here, and take it to your accountant before you act on it rather than after.

6. **Record whether key person insurance already exists, and be precise about what it actually does.** HMRC's own manual at BIM45525 describes it as "a policy insuring against loss of profits resulting from the death, critical illness, sickness, accident or injury of an employee, director or other 'key person'", and sets out the conditions under which the premium is treated as a deductible trading expense, including that "the sole purpose of taking out the insurance is the trade purpose of meeting a loss of trading income that may result from loss of the services of the key person" and, for life cover, that the policy is "term insurance, providing cover only against the risk that one or more of the lives insured dies within the term of the policy, with no other benefits." Record only whether a policy exists, who holds it and what it insures against, as stated by the owner or the policy documents. This step never estimates a premium, a sum insured or a likelihood of claim, and it never suggests that a policy in place is the same thing as the dependency being reduced. It cushions the business financially if the worst happens. It does not write down a single recipe, train a single deputy or tell a landlord who to call.

7. **Record whether a lasting power of attorney exists, separately from any will, because a will only works after death and the business does not wait that long.** GOV.UK describes the property and financial affairs LPA in plain terms: "Use this LPA to give an attorney the power to make decisions about money and property for you, for example: managing a bank or building society account, paying bills, collecting benefits or a pension, selling your home." The page makes no mention of a business account or a trading business specifically, so never assume an existing LPA automatically extends to the business bank account, supplier payments or the ability to sign for the company. Record whether one exists, when it was made, and whether the owner has confirmed with their own solicitor that it names the business accounts and authority it needs to. Where it has not been confirmed, that goes straight into the gap list rather than being marked as covered.

8. **Rank every dependency by how it could actually be broken out, using four named routes, and keep what is genuinely undelegatable in its own short list.** The four routes, in the order they are usually fastest to slowest: a documented procedure that a competent stranger could follow without you; delegated authority, meaning someone else already has the actual power to sign, approve or decide, not just the knowledge; a second named contact, meaning a supplier, the landlord's agent, the bank or the licensing authority already recognises someone other than you; and a transferable relationship, meaning a customer or supplier relationship that survives you leaving the room, which usually takes the longest because it runs on trust built over time. What is genuinely undelegatable before a sale is a short and specific list: being the person named on the share certificate, being the sole trader themselves, or a licence or registration that is legally tied to one named individual until it is formally varied or transferred. Everything else belongs in one of the four routes, even if the honest answer today is that no work has started on it yet.

9. **Hand the whole register to Codex and get back the dated files.** Give it every dependency row from steps 1 to 8 exactly as you wrote it, the DPS and FBO facts, the office holder and BADR dates, the key person insurance position, and the lasting power of attorney position, all as your own supplied answers with no judgement left open. Then run, from the folder holding your working copies:

   ```
   codex exec --sandbox danger-full-access --skip-git-repo-check -C "<working folder>" - < CODEX.md
   ```

   Back come the dependency register, the DPS and FBO file, the key person insurance status file and the gap list. Codex never decides which tasks are genuinely undelegatable, never invents a successor you did not name, and never scores anything as a percentage.

10. **Read the gap list before the register, because the gap list is the one that changes what you do this month.** The register tells you what exists. The gap list tells you what does not: every dependency with no named successor, every allergen matrix, DPS or FBO row still resting on you alone, every compulsory claim with no evidence behind it that a buyer's solicitor would ask about anyway, and every policy or power of attorney that has not actually been confirmed to cover the business. A long register with a short gap list means the writing down has started. A short register with an empty gap list on the first pass usually means step 1 was too narrow, not that the business has no dependencies.

## Then it checks

1. Every dependency in the register carries a breakout route of documented procedure, delegated authority, second named contact or transferable relationship, or is marked genuinely undelegatable, and no row is left blank.
2. The DPS file states plainly whether the owner is the sole named Designated Premises Supervisor and whether a second personal licence holder exists who could be named, with no row reading probably or left blank.
3. The FBO file states who is currently registered as the food business operator with the local authority and whether that matches who actually runs food safety day to day.
4. Every dependency with no named successor is counted separately from every dependency with a named but untrained successor, and both counts appear in the gap list.
5. The key person insurance file records either that a policy exists today with what it covers, or states plainly that none exists, and contains no premium figure, sum insured estimate or claim likelihood anywhere.
6. No file anywhere states a dependency percentage, a readiness score out of ten, or a specific price or valuation uplift figure for reducing dependency.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never score owner dependency as a percentage or a readiness figure. A score lets an owner feel finished while the licence, the recipe or the corporate customer relationship sits exactly where it was. The only honest measure of progress is which rows in the register have actually closed.
- Never state that reducing owner dependency adds a specific amount or percentage to a sale price. No published figure exists for a single independent UK hospitality business, not from gov.uk, not from the Valuation Office Agency, which exists to value property for taxation and benefits and publishes nothing about business sale premiums, and not from the Office for National Statistics. The one public tool found that claims to calculate an "owner-dependency discount" and a recoverable "premium" is a lead generation calculator for a paid consulting engagement, built on US small business data, and its own figures are marked illustrative rather than evidenced. Borrowing a number from a tool like that does the deciding for the owner, and it was never their number to begin with.
- Never decide which dependencies are genuinely undelegatable before a sale. That list is narrow and legal in nature, being the person named on the share certificate or the sole trader themselves, or a licence tied to one individual until formally varied. Everything else is the owner's own judgement about how fast it can move, not a rule this skill applies for them.
- Never write to a landlord, a licensing authority, an insurer, a bank, a customer or a member of staff. Telling any of them that the owner's role is changing has a sequence and a set of consequences that belong to the owner and their own advisers.
- Never assume a lasting power of attorney already covers the business bank account or trading authority because it exists. GOV.UK's own description of the property and financial affairs LPA does not mention a business specifically, and whether it needs extending is a question for the owner's own solicitor, not an assumption this skill makes for them.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's own accountant, solicitor and, where relevant, insurance broker to check. It applies published rules to what the owner supplies. It is not legal, tax or insurance advice, and it is not a ruling that any dependency has actually been reduced.

## Built from
- Licensing Act 2003, section 15, "Premises supervisors", https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/section/15, up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 23 September 2026, read 23 September 2026: the definition of designated premises supervisor in step 3.
- Licensing Act 2003, section 19, "Mandatory condition: designated premises supervisor", https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/section/19, up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 23 September 2026, read 23 September 2026: the mandatory condition and the personal licence requirement in step 3.
- Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, Article 3(3), as it applies in the UK, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2002/178/article/3, read 23 September 2026: the definition of food business operator in step 4.
- Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs, Article 5, as it applies in the UK, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2004/852/article/5, up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 31 December 2020, read 23 September 2026: the permanent HACCP procedure duty attached to the food business operator in step 4.
- HM Revenue and Customs, Helpsheet HS275, "Business Asset Disposal Relief (2026)", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/entrepreneurs-relief-hs275-self-assessment-helpsheet/hs275-business-asset-disposal-relief-2026, published 6 April 2026, read 23 September 2026: the personal company test, the officer or employee condition and the two year qualifying period in step 5.
- HM Revenue and Customs, Business Income Manual, BIM45525, "Key man insurance", https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim45525, last updated 4 August 2026, read 23 September 2026: the definition of key person insurance and the deductibility conditions in step 6.
- GOV.UK, "Power of attorney", https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney, no publication or updated date shown on the page, read 23 September 2026: the property and financial affairs lasting power of attorney wording in step 7.
- GOV.UK, "Valuation Office Agency", https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/valuation-office-agency, no publication or updated date shown on the page, read 23 September 2026: confirms the agency values property for taxation and benefits and publishes no business sale valuation benchmark, cited in the rules.
- GitHub, dataappengineer/succession-calculator, "Ctrl Shift: Business Succession Calculator", https://github.com/dataappengineer/succession-calculator, repository data read via https://api.github.com/repos/dataappengineer/succession-calculator on 23 September 2026 showing 0 stargazers and 6 open issues, created 25 April 2026, read 23 September 2026: the public tool cited in the rules as an example of an invented owner-dependency discount figure.

# owner-dependency

## You are given
The owner's own task-by-task account of every dependency they believe currently runs through them personally, each one already sorted by the owner into a task, a relationship, a piece of knowledge or a form of authority, each with the owner's own statement of why it depends on them, a proposed breakout route already chosen by the owner as one of documented procedure, delegated authority, second named contact or transferable relationship, or marked by the owner as genuinely undelegatable before a sale, a named successor where one exists, and a target date where one has been set. The owner's statement of whether they are the sole named Designated Premises Supervisor and whether a second personal licence holder exists who could be named. The owner's statement of who is currently registered as the Food Business Operator with the local authority and whether that matches who runs food safety day to day. The owner's position as a company officer, employee or shareholder, and the date of any change already made or planned to that position. The owner's statement of whether key person insurance is in place, and if so who holds it, what it insures against and its renewal date, taken from the policy documents or the owner directly. The owner's statement of whether a lasting power of attorney exists, when it was made, and whether it has been confirmed by their own solicitor to cover the business bank account and trading authority. Every judgement call, including which route a dependency takes, which items are genuinely undelegatable, who is named as a successor, and whether a gap matters, has already been made by the owner and is supplied to you as a stated fact.

## Produce
Write into a `./owner-dependency-output/` folder:

1. `dependency-register.csv` with these columns in this order: `dependency_ref`, `category`, `description_verbatim`, `why_it_depends_on_owner_verbatim`, `breakout_route`, `named_successor`, `successor_named`, `target_date`, `date_recorded`. `dependency_ref` is DEP001 upward. `category` is exactly one of `task`, `relationship`, `knowledge`, `authority`. `breakout_route` is exactly one of `documented procedure`, `delegated authority`, `second named contact`, `transferable relationship`, `genuinely undelegatable`. `successor_named` is `yes` or `no`, and is `no` whenever `named_successor` is blank. Sort the file by `breakout_route` in the fixed order just given, documented procedure first and genuinely undelegatable last, and within each route by `dependency_ref`. This is a sort on a value the owner already supplied, not a judgement about which route is correct.
2. `dps-fbo-single-point-of-failure.csv` with columns: `role`, `named_individual`, `sole_holder`, `second_person_identified`, `second_person_name`, `licence_or_registration_reference`, `date_recorded`. `role` is exactly one of `Designated Premises Supervisor`, `Food Business Operator`. `sole_holder` and `second_person_identified` are `yes` or `no`. Exactly one row per role the owner has supplied facts for; if the venue holds no premises licence, still write the `Food Business Operator` row and note the absence of a DPS row in `gaps.md`.
3. `key-person-insurance-status.csv` with columns: `policy_in_place`, `insured_individual`, `policy_type`, `sum_insured_gbp`, `renewal_date`, `evidence_source`. `policy_in_place` is `yes` or `no`. Every cell other than `policy_in_place` is left empty and the row is listed in `gaps.md` when `policy_in_place` is `no`. `sum_insured_gbp` is copied exactly from a supplied policy document or the owner's own statement and is never estimated, calculated or rounded.
4. `gaps.md` a numbered list of: every dependency in `dependency-register.csv` with `successor_named` equal to `no`; every row in `dps-fbo-single-point-of-failure.csv` where `sole_holder` is `yes` and `second_person_identified` is `no`; the key person insurance row where `policy_in_place` is `no`; whether a lasting power of attorney exists and, if it does, whether it has been confirmed to cover the business bank account and trading authority, recorded as confirmed, not confirmed, or no lasting power of attorney supplied; and any dependency row where `breakout_route` was left blank or does not match one of the five fixed values, which is an input error to report rather than a value to guess.

## Rules
- Codex counts, sorts and records what the owner supplied. It never scores dependency as a percentage or a readiness figure anywhere, in any file.
- Codex never estimates, states or implies a specific price, valuation multiple or percentage uplift for reducing owner dependency in a single independent UK hospitality business. No such figure exists in any source supplied, and none is to be written even as an illustration.
- Codex never decides which dependency is genuinely undelegatable, never chooses a breakout route the owner did not supply, and never invents a named successor. A dependency with no supplied route or no supplied successor is recorded as missing in `gaps.md`, never filled in with a plausible answer.
- Codex never estimates a sum insured, a premium or a renewal date for key person insurance. An unsupplied value is an empty cell and a line in `gaps.md`.
- Codex never assumes a lasting power of attorney covers business assets because one exists. The confirmed, not confirmed or no LPA supplied distinction in `gaps.md` is drawn from what the owner stated, not inferred from the LPA's existence.
- Use British English, GBP written as GBP or the pound sign, and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every quoted task description, relationship name and successor name is copied exactly as supplied, including punctuation and capitalisation.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own records, and for their accountant, solicitor and, where relevant, insurance broker to check before anything is relied on. It applies supplied facts to a register and is not a ruling that any dependency has actually been reduced.

## Return
The absolute path of every file written, the row count of `dependency-register.csv` broken down by `breakout_route`, the count of dependencies with `successor_named` equal to `no`, the DPS and FBO rows stated in full including whether each is a sole holder with no second person identified, the key person insurance status stated as in place or not in place, the lasting power of attorney status stated as confirmed, not confirmed or no LPA supplied, and the `gaps.md` item count.